The perseverance, of course, brought memorable close encounters with Madagascar's marine life - humpback whales breaching meters away from his kayak, giant leatherback turtles gliding alongside him and even having his boat rammed by sharks.

Sweet Water flew on for another mile until, four hundred paces ahead, Osman made out the dark hump of the bull's back crashing through the grey kit tar thorn scrub, like a whale breaching in a turbulent sea.

Look for humpback whales spouting or breaching offshore.

The view from the courthouse also offers a window on Jamaica's future: a silvery , structural whale breaching gracefully in the distance over Sutphin Boulevard.

There was a rumble, like a massive humpback whale breaching underground.

You can watch whales breaching and hear them singing on the CD-ROM In the Company of Whales, from the Discovery Channel.

And there are lots of distractions: looming Sentinel Peak, picturesque Hout Bay, roadside African crafts hawkers, whales breaching offshore and baboons hustling for handouts.

For a few shots, such as the whales' breaching the water towards the end of the film, the creatures were represented by life-size animatronics shot at Paramount.

We saw for the first time a whale breaching - spectacularly - forcing itself up out of the water and crashing back down again.